The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-1 in a celebratory atmosphere at Major League Baseball's 'Little League Classic' in Williamsport.

The game at Bowman Field, home of the Little League World Series, saw both teams play in alternate uniforms in front of a crowd featuring junior teams from around the world.

Nicholas Castellanos and Jason Heyward's home runs started the scoring, with Anthony Rizzo dealing the final blow with a two-run homer before, with the help of Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish, delivering the ball to a member of the Japanese Little League team. Pittsburgh's Starling Marte hit a consolation homer.

The Cubs remain joint top of the National League Central with the St Louis Cardinals, who held off a late Cincinnati Reds fightback to win 5-4. Paul Goldschmidt and Tommy Edman went long for the Cards.

The pair pulled two games clear of the Milwaukee Brewers, who lost 16-8 to a Washington Nationals team who matched their club record with eight home runs – indeed, 22 of the 24 runs came from homers, with Adam Eaton's two-run triple the only exception.

Washington are still 5.5 games out of the NL East lead after the Atlanta Braves beat NL West pace-setters the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-3 thanks to Rafael Ortega's grand slam in the sixth inning.

Zach Greinke celebrated his 200th career win as the Houston Astros beat the Oakland Athletics 4-1 to stretch their American League West lead to 7.5 games over their opponents. Greinke joins only CC Sabathia and Justin Verlander with 200 wins among active MLB pitchers.

They stay 2.5 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians, who beat the New York Yankees 8-4 with the help of homers from Mike Freeman, Francisco Lindor and Oscar Mercado. The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Detroit Tigers 5-4 on Ji-Man Choi's walk-off two-run single to close the gap behind the Yankees to 9.5 games, while the Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles 13-7.

The Seattle Mariners won 7-0 against the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Angels beat the Chicago White Sox 9-2.

The New York Mets beat the Kansas City Royals 11-5 with a six-run seventh inning, while the Philadelphia Phillies lost 3-2 to the San Diego Padres. The Colorado Rockies scored a walk-off 7-6 win over the Miami Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks won 6-1 against the San Francisco Giants.